By Ben Smith
4.9
154154 ratings
The podcast currently has 248 episodes available.
Stephan Vanfleteren's career began as a staff photographer for the Belgian newspaper De Morgen. He continued to contribute to its weekend magazine as a freelancer until 2009.
His radical black and white social documentary work covers the disappearing phenomena of everyday life in his homeland, Belgium. Over the years, Stephan has worked in conflict zones such as Kosovo, Rwanda and Afghanistan and he is a six time winner of the prestigious World Press Photo awards among a number of other international prizes.
Stephan's intense portrait photography captures the essence of humanity in subjects ranging from the ordinary man to top politicians, sports idols and celebrities.
He has exhibited in Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, London, Liverpool and Verona and his books include: Elvis & Presley (Kruse Verlag, 2001) a road trip across America dressed as Elvis Presley with photographer Robert Huber; Flandrien (Mertz, 2005) on the Flemish obsession with cycling; Belgicum (Lannoo 2007) an enigmatic portrayal of Belgium and Portret 1989-2009 (Lannoo 2009). His most recent books are Atelier published by Hannibal Books, an ode to the ability to observe, represent, elevate, and ultimately, connect, and Present, a journey through his oeuvre, with expansive personal reflections and stories from three decades of encounters and photography, from street photography in world cities like New York to the genocide of Rwanda, from storefront façades to the mystical landscapes of the Atlantic wall, from still lifes to intense portraits, and Charleroi – Il est clair que le gris est noir.
In episode 244, Stephan discusses, among other things:
Referenced:
Website | Instagram
“I was very scared of success. That was maybe my luck. Success was something I had difficulty dealing with. People are complimenting you on your work at the beginning and I’m just accepting that but it was difficult. And it helped me because I never arrived. I was on my way and the doubts were still there. If you think you know how to do it, it’s time to leave. Sometimes if I think ‘ok, I can do that pretty well, Of course other people can do it better, but it’s time to change, to have another approach…’ So I had that in the early beginning, that feeling that I have to change. I love to begin something new.”
Featuring:
Website | Instagram
Polly Braden is a documentary photographer whose work features an ongoing conversation between the people she photographs and the environment in which they find themselves. Highlighting the small, often unconscious gestures of her subjects, Polly particularly enjoys long-term, in depth collaborations that in turn lends her photographs a unique, quiet intimacy. She works on long-term, self-initiated projects, as well as commissions for international publications.
Polly has produced a large body of work that includes not only solo exhibitions and magazine features, but a number of books published by Dewi Lewis, including Holding The Baby (2022), Out of the Shadows: The Untold Story of People with Autism or Learning Disabilities (2018), and China Between (2010), and two published by Hoxton Mini Press: London’s Square Mile: A Secret City (2019) and Adventures in the Lea Valley), (2016).
Polly teaches regularly at The University of Westminster and London College of Communication (LCC), she is a winner of the Jerwood Photography Prize, The Guardian Young Photographer of the Year, 2002, and the Joanna Drew Bursary 2013. Polly is nominated by Hundred Heroines 2020 and she has exhibited at numerous venues internationally. Her most recent solo exhibition, of her project Leaving Ukraine, just ended at the Foundling Museum in London, where it was on show from March 15th to October 20th 2024.
In episode 242, Polly discusses, among other things:
Referenced:
Website | Instagram
“I’m not someone who wanted to just jump in, point a camera at someone and walk away. I think I’ve always been someone who wanted it to feel very collaborative. Whether you’re on the street and you’ve made eye contact and you feel like someone’s ok with it, at the very basic level, to now as I get older, when I’d be as interested in someone doing all the work and me just being a vehicle through which someone can tell their story.”
Agnieszka Sosnowska was born in Warsaw, Poland and was raised in Boston, Massachusetts. She earned a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and a MFA from Boston University. She is currently an elementary school teacher. She lives on farm
in East Iceland. She is recognised for her self portraits that span 30 years. Currently she is working on series that embodies her life as an immigrant in Iceland. She uses the camera to take inspiration from a land that is otherworldly.
“I grew up in Boston and traveled to Iceland 25 years ago on a whim”, says Agnieszka. “I fell in love and remained. With my Icelandic husband I chose to live in nature, not visit it. This decision has not been without tests. Together we have made a life that I feel we are only beginning. Everyday, I search for corners of quiet. When there, I stop and listen for a long time. These places exist around our farm, with friends, and the students I teach. These places are my everyday. They are my everything.”
Agnieszka has been the recipient of a number of grants, including a Fulbright Scholars Fellowship to Poland and an American Scandinavian Fellowship to Iceland. She was awarded the Hjálmar R. Bárðarson Photography Grant by the National Museum of Iceland. Her series was awarded the Director’s Choice by the Center awards in 2017 and she has been in the Top 50 of Critical Mass on three occasions. Her work has been exhibited in the National Museum of Iceland and the Reykjavik Museum of Photography. She is represented exclusively by Vision Neil Folberg Gallery in Jerusalem.
Earlier this year, Agnieszka released her debut photobook, För, published by Trespasser Books and already sold out.
Her collaboration with Icelandic poet Ingunn Snædal, entitled RASK, is currently being exhibited at the Reykjavik Museum of Photography until Decembet 2024.
In episode 241, Agnieszka discusses, among other things:
Referenced:
Website | Instagram
“I wanted to grow. I just didn’t know how. And I think the only way you grow is not by thinking about it but by doing it and making the mistakes. And I made a lot of mistakes. And thank God I did because in doing the mistakes I started to get more to having the self-portraits be more real. And that’s really hard to do. Especially I think as me having done it for so long, and also getting older in front of a camera, as a woman, it’s hard.”
Robbie Lawrence is a London based Scottish photographer and director represented by Webber Represents. Robbie is acutely attentive to the way images tell a story. Working with a painterly softness and sensitivity to his subjects, he deals in detail and nuance. From portraiture, travel and documentary to editorial work, he places the human experience front and centre to create thoughtful, abstract images, with an emphasis on narrative.
Recent books include Blackwater River and A Voice Above The Linn published by Stanley/Barker. Stills gallery in Edinburgh hosted the first UK institutional solo exhibition by Robbie in 2022, bringing together a snapshot of life post-Brexit across Scotland’s cities, rural locations and coastal towns.
Robbie’s new book, Long Walk Home, was just released (September 2024) by Stanley/Barker.
Clients Include: UN, Apple, Nike, Hermes, Gucci, The New Yorker, Du Monde, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, I-D and many others.
In episode 240, Robbie discusses, among other things:
Referenced:
Website | Instagram
“I like the variety […] I like being on set. You become more like a director. As a photographer you’re almost the emotional heartbeat of a set. It’s interesting because at school and university I really found exams hellish from an expectation point of view. Like, I would put myself under a lot of pressure. And I would describe some of those more pressurised commercial jobs almost like a school exam where you expected to produce something of quality under a very tight time constraint. As a physical experience it can feel similar, and I suppose maybe it’s just experience that I can now recall moments where I’ve overcome those kind of stresses. So I like the shift.”
Visual storyteller Kiana Hayeri grew up in Tehran and moved to Toronto while she was still a teenager. Faced with the challenges of adapting to a new environment, she took up photography as a way of bridging the gap in language and culture. In 2014, a short month before NATO forces pulled out, Kiana moved to Kabul and stayed on for 8 years. Her work often explores complex topics such as migration, adolescence, identity and sexuality in conflict-ridden societies.
In 2014, Kiana was named as one of the emerging photographers by PDN 30 Under 30. In 2016, she was selected as the recipient of Chris Hondros Award as an emerging photographer. In 2017, she received a grant from European Journalism Center to do a series of reporting on gender equality out of Afghanistan and received Stern Grant in 2018 to continue her work on the state of mental health among afghan women. In 2020, Kiana received Tim Hetherington Visionary award for her proposed project to reveal the dangers of dilettante “hit & run” journalism. Later that year, she was named as the 6th recipient of the James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting. In 2021, Kiana received the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for her photographic series Where Prison is Kind of a Freedom, documenting the lives of Afghan women in Herat Prison. In 2022, Kiana was part of The New York Times reporting team that won The Hal Boyle Award for The Collapse of Afghanistan and was shortlisted under International Reporting for the Pulitzer Prize. In the same year, she was also named as the winner of Leica Oskar Barnack Award for her portfolio, Promises Written On the Ice, Left In the Sun, an intimate look into the lives of Afghan from all walks of life.
Kiana, along with her colloaborator, the researcher Mélissa Cornet, is recipient of the 2024 Carmignac Photojournalism Award for the reportage No Woman’s Land, an investigation into the plight of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban and the work will be showcased in a double exhibition this Autumn - from October 25th to November 18th - at the Réfectoire des Cordeliers in Paris as part of the Photo Saint Germain festival.
Kiana is a Senior TED fellow, a National Geographic Explorer grantee and a regular contributor to The New York Times and National Geographic. She is currently based in Sarajevo, telling stories from Afghanistan, The Balkans and beyond.
In episode 239, Kiana discusses, among other things:
Her story for the NYT about FGM in Gambia
Gender apartheid
Her take on winning awards as a photojournalist
Having to Google what the Robert Cap Gold Medal was - having won it
Her book When Cages Fly
Moving to Canada from Iran as a teenager
How photography helped her bridge the ‘culture and language gap’.
Being at a ‘gifted’ school
Her first trip to Afghanistan
Comparisons with Iran in terms of relative ‘liberalism’.
Her first commission from National Geographic
Her story on women in Herat prison
The moment Afghanistan fell to the Taliban and her guilt over leaving friends behind
Gender apartheid in Afghanistan specifically
The dangers of ‘dilettante hit and run journalism’
Referenced:
Eddie Adams workshops
Dominic Nahr
Kitra Cahana
Ed Ou
Guy Martin
Stephen Mayes
Mélissa Cornet
Sarah Leen
Website | Instagram
“I tell people having a camera is like living a thousand different lives, but you have that camera as an excuse to immerse yourself into something, live it for a while and then walk away when you’re ready.”
Using photography, testimony and archive, Diana Matar's in-depth bodies of work investigate themes of history, memory and state sponsored violence. Grounded in heavy research and often spending years on a project, Diana attempts to capture the invisible traces of human history and produces installations and books that query what role aesthetics might playin the depiction of power. A graduate of the Royal College of Art, Diana has received the Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award for Fine Art; the International Fund for Documentary Photography; a Ford Foundation Grant for artists making work on history and memory; and twice been awarded an Arts Council of England Individual Artist Grant. Her work is held in public and private collections and has been exhibited in numerous institutions including Tate Modern, London; The National Museum of Singapore; Museum Folkswang, Essen, Germany; The Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; and Musee de la Photographie a Charleroi. Her monograph Evidencewas published in 2014 by Schilt Publishing Amsterdam to critical acclaim and chosen by New York Times Photography critic Teju Cole as one of two best photography books of the year. In 2019 Matar was appointed Distinguished Artist at Barnard College Columbia University, New York. In April 2024 Diana’s most recent book, My America, was published by GOST Books.
In episode 238, Diana discusses, among other things:
Website | Instagram
“I think I internalised a European sense of America in several different ways. When I was out on the road a lot of things seemed exotic to me, things that I’d grown up with and were just part of being: the long distances; these buildings that just pop up in the middle of nowhere; the emptiness; the scale… the kind of watching of movies of what is the American west. The internalisation I think has something to do with scale. I live in London - the small streets, you’re around people all the time, and then being in this openness, which i miss and i love, but I did find it unnerving and it effected how I made the work actually.”
Abdulhamid Kircher is an artist from Queens, New York. He was born in 1996 in Berlin to German and Turkish parents, and immigrated with his mother to the United States at the age of eight. His work is a living archive of place and people, as it is also a dedication to the language of photography, the mechanics and aesthetic possibilities of the form. Through his devotion to classical forms of image making and the radical experimentation required for each of his subjects, his process bridges the idea between document and narrative. He received his BA in Culture and Media from The New School in 2018 and his MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California San Diego in 2022. Abdul currently lives and works between Berlin and Los Angeles.
Abdul’s debut photobook, Rotting From Within, was recently published by Loose Joints in June this year (2024). In it Abdul explores identity, patriarchy, generational trauma and the possibility of reconciliation in a diaristic project between Berlin and Turkey. A solo exhibition of the work is currently on show at the Carlier Gebauer gallery in Berlin until the 31st August. The 53 minute documentary film, Noch ein Kind (Still a Kid), 2024, by Abdul’s childhood friend Maxi Hachem, a Lebanese-German filmmaker based in Berlin, is also being screened as part of the exhibition. His documentary investigates the complex relationships and wounded history of Rotting from Within spanning the past three years between Berlin and Turkey.
In episode 237, Abdul discusses, among other things:
Website | Instagram
“I love it, but it’s beyond love because it feels like something that I just need to do. That’s why I was talking about photography being such an intuitive thing in my head, it’s because I don’t really have an option. I need to take these photographs, I need to make these photographs, and it’s not really something I have power over. And I think that’s the scary bit, it’s that yes I love it for what it’s allowed me to explore and allowed me to sort of open up to the world, but in that way it’s also become a burden.”
The podcast currently has 248 episodes available.
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